September 30 - October 20, 2021
From Laura Rathe Fine Art:
“Laura Rathe Fine Art announces an exciting joint exhibition featuring world-renowned artists, Gavin Rain and Gil Bruvel. LRFA will be hosting the opening reception on Thursday, September 30th from 6-9pm at their River Oaks District gallery (4444 Westheimer Rd.) Combining new-age techniques with timeless portraiture, Face-to-Face showcases Gavin Rain, Gil Bruvel and Robert Mars’ unique explorations of the human form through their own modes of geometric expression. Colorful hand-painted dots, collages of vintage papers, and hand-cut wooden sticks are layered with machine-like precision to create bodies of work that break the traditional conventions of their mediums. As the viewer moves farther from the artwork, the subject matter becomes all the clearer, pushing the lines of abstraction to new heights. This exhibition will be on display through October 20th 2021. FEATURED ARTISTS Gil Bruvel has passionately followed an ever-changing, organic flow of artistic expression as it has moved through a series of mediums and forms. Each one reflects the artist’s aesthetic sensibility and thoughtful perspective at the time, while continuously remaining open to the inner nudges inherent in a truly creative life. As the son of a renowned cabinetmaker in southern France, Gil absorbed the precision of hand and an eye for design. Studies in the fundamentals of drawing and sculpture began when he was nine. Later, apprenticeship in an art restoration workshop provided an excellent art history education with intimate, hands-on insight into techniques of the Old Masters as well as a fluency in 20th-century art. By the time the young artist set up his own studio, he was combining these and other creative sources with a finely honed eye for recurring patterns and motifs in the natural world. In 1990, he settled in the United States. Gavin Rain was born in Cape Town in 1971. He studied Art and Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town in the 80s and 90s. Rain has been painting his whole life but started with pointillism around 2003. He is influenced by Seurat and Russian avant-garde art of the 1900s. Rain’s objective is to broaden people’s visual and cognitive horizons by showing them the fantastic and impossible. By combining his origins, his studies, aptitudes and personal talent, Rain has invented an art that is both unique and participative so that all who look at one of his paintings can perceive the convergence of two opposing pictorial styles: the abstractness of the multitude of colorful concentric circles that thicken into dense and imperfect dots in relief, and the figurative aspect of the image that is defined by the sum of these same dots as the viewer takes a few steps back. Robert Mars begins with multicolored paint layers of loose and dynamic brushstrokes on vintage newspapers. The choice to sometimes highlight and sometimes obliterate this record of events acts as rebellion to structure and order. The vintage newspaper is a bridge to the events of the past; anchoring the work in history. The dialogue between the layers of color and the events glimpsed through the paint sets the palette for the final composition. Robert Mars’ artwork is exhibited worldwide including museum collections in Munich, Tokyo, Amsterdam, London, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, Atlanta, Aspen and Naples. His artwork has also been selected for the upcoming Absolut Vodka 2011 campaign alongside Damien Hirst and he was also recently commissioned by Oceania Cruise Lines to create site specific pieces for their newest cruise ship, the Marina. ABOUT LAURA RATHE FINE ART With over 25 years’ experience in the industry, gallery owner, Laura Rathe, started her career working as a private art dealer before establishing Laura Rathe Fine Art (LRFA) in 1998 in Houston, Texas. LRFA now operates out of two locations in Houston and a third gallery in Dallas on Dragon Street, the city’s premiere arts district destination. Since the gallery’s inception, LRFA has established itself as a leading contemporary art venue, offering an impressive range of exhibitions and programming to its patrons in both cities.
LRFA represents a dynamic roster of established and mid-career contemporary artists working in a variety of media, many of whom have been acquired into world-renowned private, corporate, and museum collections. Various clientele include BBVA Compass, HKS Architects, Wells Fargo, W Hotels, UT Southwestern, Halliburton, and ConocoPhillips. LRFA also participates in a number of prominent art fairs including CONTEXT Art Miami, Art Southampton, Art Wynwood, Texas Contemporary, and the Dallas Art Fair.”
On View: September 30, 2021 | 12–5 pm
Laura Rathe Fine Art - Houston (Westheimer Location)
4444 Westheimer Road
Houston, 77027 Texas
713.527.7700
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